


the stars burn out

by aerixlee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith's No Fun Desert Year, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, desert as a literal and figurative representation of Bad Shit, is it a hallucination if he's imagining it and is fully aware that he's imagining it, rated mature because it feels like too much to be teen, suicide attempt is not really an attempt so much as it is an Almost Happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:42:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29923263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerixlee/pseuds/aerixlee
Summary: “You’re dead, aren’t you?”Shiro lifts a shoulder, then drops it. “Maybe,” he says again, and Keith imagines him tilting his head a little, giving him a searching look. “It’s likely that I am.”_______Keith considers death, the desert, and Shiro.
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron), implied one-sided Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	the stars burn out

**Author's Note:**

> starting to think that angst and introspection are the only things i'm capable of writing.
> 
> wrote this at like 1am while in the Not Great Thoughts zone, then immediately went to sleep, woke up the next day, edited it, and now we're here. it might be a little rough because of that?
> 
> sheith is very much implied other than like one line. definitely can be read either way if you'd like, especially since it's one-sided.
> 
> (also just so we're clear, shiro isn't actually there - keith is just imagining that he is, which is why he's very ooc, and keith gets very carried away with it in the worst way possible)
> 
> cw: suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt (of a sort?), generally not good mental state or self care habits
> 
> enjoy <3

The funniest part about this is that Keith doesn’t think that he actually wants to die.

Well. That’s a lie. But he never wanted to die like _this._ Alone, all alone, in the middle of the desert, throat hoarse from a lack of use, skin dry and cracked from hours spent out under a blazing sun. There are tear tracks, he’s sure, dried on his cheeks, because he can feel them when he blinks or presses his lips together. Not that he’s looked in a mirror at all in weeks.

It’s stifling in the shack, pitch-black outside and no doubt cooler, but Keith doesn’t move from where he sits, knife on the table, elbows propped on his knees with his chin resting in his hand. He keeps staring at the knife, thinking.

Because it’s not that he wants to die. He just wants everything to-- to _stop._

Keith tilts his head, considering the knife. He can’t imagine that this is the use his dad expected him to get from it, but the man is dead. It’s not like he can complain about Keith’s choices when he left him on his own, left him for a fire and a house and smoke rising into the air, left him to a million foster homes and an orphanage that never--

Keith cuts his thoughts off right there.

He picks up the knife, the hilt cool and heavy in his hand. The purple emblem in the center glints oddly in the dim light from the flickering lamp, the only thing keeping the room from being left completely pitch black, and Keith is maybe a little surprised that the electricity in this place hasn’t been cut off yet. He’s got some battery-powered lamps and hand-crank flashlights somewhere in here, back when he cared enough to look after himself, when he was fresh out of the Garrison and angry enough to turn his energy into _something._ Because Keith has never been idle, has never been the kind of person to sit down and let the days run past him, but--

But now, apparently, he is.

He doesn’t like calling it grief, because Shiro can’t be dead. But there’s no other word for it. No other way to describe the numb _pounding_ in his chest, in his head, his entire body, the way that he always felt like he was on the verge of tears or screaming, but he’d walk around the shack like a ghost, expressionless and robotic in his movements. He’d lie in bed for hours, sometimes, just watching the shadows move as the sun rose and set, getting up only when he absolutely had to.

Keith presses the blade of the knife flat against his palm, startling himself out of his thoughts, cool metal kissing desert-hot skin.

Ironically, this is the most alive he’s felt in weeks.

It’s not like these thoughts are new. Shiro used to give him concerned looks when he’d make a joke a little too accurate to be entirely lighthearted, used to climb up to the rooftops when he couldn’t find him, and he’d always tell Keith that he was _just passing by_ or _had a feeling that you’d be up_ here. But beneath his words was always a soft, _just in case,_ and Keith saw it for exactly what it was.

It’s not like he went up to the roof with that intention, either. But maybe he liked how the ground looked from so high, how his heart would race and his stomach would clench, how the slightest wrong move might send him tumbling down. Maybe he liked it a little too much.

Maybe that’s why Shiro showed him other ways to chase the adrenaline rush, other ways to feel alive in a world that left him for dead. Things he could do with him, instead, because if one of them got hurt, the other would always be there to take them back.

There’s no one here now.

“You left,” says Keith quietly, voice cracking slightly. He clears his throat, painfully aware that this is the first sound he’s made in-- in what, days? Weeks? Months? He imagines Shiro sitting at the counter in the kitchen, perched up on the stool with his arms folded. “You left, Shiro.”

“I had to,” says Shiro. Keith can almost see the quirk of his eyebrow, the soft, sympathetic smile that Keith wanted to punch off of his face the first time he saw it until he realized how painfully genuine it was. In his mind, he’s wearing a tight-fitting shirt and loose sweatpants, not the crisp grey Garrison uniform that everyone else is used to seeing him in. “You know I did, Keith.”

“Are you dead?”

“Maybe.”

“I fucking hate you,” Keith says. “You know that, right?”

Shiro’s expression doesn’t change. The smile stays, gentle and knowing, and maybe things haven’t changed much, after all, because Keith finds that he really does want to punch it off. “I know.”

“You’re dead, aren’t you?” Keith says quietly, even though the thought makes his head feel like it’s splitting open, makes everything in his mind scream _no no no no no no._ “I don’t believe it was pilot error, but there’s-- It’s been months. There’s no way you could’ve survived out there.”

Shiro lifts a shoulder, then drops it. “Maybe,” he says again, and Keith imagines him tilting his head a little, giving him a searching look. “It’s likely that I am.”

“I won’t believe it until I see your body.”

Shiro chuckles. “You’re as stubborn as ever,” he says. “It won’t be happening if I really am dead. Pressure, starvation, dehydration, explosions… It’s not likely you’ll be seeing me again.”

Keith’s breath catches in his throat.

“Shut up,” he grits out.

“I’m in your head,” Shiro says, somehow managing to sound just like Shiro and nothing like him at the same time. Keith’s Shiro wouldn’t treat him this carelessly, wouldn’t brush aside his questions like they’re nothing at all, but Keith’s Shiro would also be here right now. His Shiro wouldn’t have left him like this, wouldn’t have abandoned him to isolation and the desert, to a knife in his hand and a shack that has only ever known the sound of others leaving. “If you really wanted me to shut up, you could make me.”

Keith’s eyes land on the knife again.

“Go on,” says Shiro softly, and, quite suddenly, it sounds like he’s right behind Keith instead, lips brushing against his ear. And Keith knows that the couch is against the wall, that there’s just a closed window behind him, but he can’t help but shudder at the imaginary touch. “Make me quiet, Keith.”

Keith hardly realizes that he’s trembling until the knife nearly falls out of his hands. He fumbles for it, just barely managing to catch it before it hits the floor.

“Shiro,” whispers Keith, and his eyes are blurring like he’s about to cry, but he hasn’t consciously cried in ages, not since that first week he was here. He’s always found the tracks on his face after they occurred, whether waking with them or finding himself in the bathroom, heart carved out of his chest and frozen with so much emotion that he’d gone numb.

“Shut me up,” breathes Shiro. “You’ve got your chance. You’ve finally got it, after all these years. Probably not the way that you hoped you’d make me quiet, though.”

“Fuck you,” Keith says, but it comes out broken and cracked, shattered beyond repair, carrying none of his usual fire and bite. And he can _hear_ Shiro’s smile when he speaks.

“You’ll see me again if you do it,” he says quietly.

In Keith’s blurred vision, he can just make out the outline of his knife. He can’t see the strange emblem on the hilt anymore.

“Dad’ll be pissed when he finds out what I did with the knife,” Keith says, somehow managing to keep his voice steady. He swallows. “Pretty sure it was Mom’s, but he never confirmed it for me. Was too young.”

Keith takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to do it,” he whispers. “Not like this. Wish it could’ve been on the hoverbike. Would’ve felt more alive in those last few moments, I think. No one’s going to find my body in here like this.”

“You’ll be fine,” says Shiro, and Keith swears he can feel his breath on his neck. “It’s easy. You’re choosing this, anyways, so it’ll be much smoother for you than it was for me.”

Keith closes his eyes, and the tears finally slip down his face, warm even in the sweltering heat.

“Throat?” he asks, choking a little on the words. “Or wrists?”

“Your choice, hotshot.”

There’s something distinctly wrong, Keith thinks, raising the knife, about slitting his throat on the couch in the middle of his own house. This feels like something that should be done in a more private setting, like a bathroom, even though there’s no one around for miles in every direction, even though this is perhaps the most privacy he’s ever had in his entire life. When he presses metal into soft flesh, his blood will spill all over his dad’s old couch, seep into the floorboards of the home he spent just a few short years living in before coming back, older and angrier. It feels appropriate, almost, to know that he came into life in this house and will now be leaving it here, too. To know that he’s here because of Shiro, to know that Dad was here because of Mom, to know that Keith was left here because of Dad.

But, still. There’s something wrong about the knowledge that he’ll dye the whole room red with his blood. Death isn’t a private thing, but it feels like it should be.

He wonders who will find his body.

He wonders if anyone will at all.

“I miss you,” Keith says, voice trembling. The point of the knife, his dad’s only gift to him, rests just above his pulse point. He doesn’t know enough about the body to know if this would be a fast death, but it feels like it should be, the place where his blood pumps strongest, pounds a tattoo beneath his skin, and it really is terribly ironic how he can feel more alive than he has in ages while sitting here, bracing himself for death. “Fuck, Shiro, I miss you more than anything.”

“You’ll see me soon,” says Shiro, and Keith, his eyes still closed, pretends that Shiro is really here, that his lips are just that close to his ear, that if he turns, opens his eyes, Shiro will be right there, glowing bright even in the dim light of an almost-broken lamp in the middle of the night, smiling at Keith like he always used to, unfaltering even here. “I promise.”

_I promise._

The knife touches his neck. He’s holding his breath.

“Shiro?” Keith whispers.

There’s no response.

Shiro isn’t there.

He never was.

The knife clatters to the ground. Keith shoots up to his feet, heart racing, thudding hummingbird-fast beneath his ribcage, hands still-- still shaking, still _fucking_ shaking at what he was going to do, what he wasn’t even a centimeter away from--

He runs for the door, hardly aware of what he’s doing until he’s dropped to his knees in the middle of the sand, face tilted up to the midnight sky like it holds all of the answers, tears glistening on his too pale, too sharp face, pouring down like rain in a thunderstorm, heartbeat forming the thunder as thoughts race lightning-fast in his mind, too fast to process. He’s breathing hard, fast, like he’s just sprinted a mile, and he’s staring up at the stars, at stars that might be dead, stars so far that he can’t even fathom the distance.

Dimly, he’s aware of the warm trickle of blood down his neck. He reaches up, a bit absent-mindedly, to find a small nick in the skin from when he dropped the knife.

He looks down at his hand, pulling it away from his neck, and blinks a little at the sight of dark blood, nearly black in the moonlight, staining his palm.

Keith drops his hand.

“I said I’d be here when you got back,” Keith says to the night sky. He swallows, hands clenching tightly. “I’m not-- I don’t know if you’re dead. I won’t let go until I know.”

He exhales shakily. “I promised you I’d be here,” he says. “You’ve never once let me down, Shiro. I’m trusting that you won’t this time. And I won’t let you down, either.”

The desert is silent. A breeze ruffles his hair, cooling the blood on his neck and hand.

“Fucking hate you,” mutters Keith. “Bastard.”

_I love you._

“You’d better come back, old-timer,” he says. He glares at the sky, at the stars twinkling high above, at the thin slice of silver moon. “I’ll wait as long as it takes. You can’t make me let go. You can’t. I don’t care what the Garrison says. It wasn’t pilot error, and you’re not dead.”

Keith pauses.

“You can’t be,” he says, barely a whisper. “You can’t be dead.”

He curls his hands into fists, clenching and then unclenching them. All of the tension drains out of his body in a single swoop as he exhales, shoulders slumping. He drops his head, closing his eyes as he scrubs a hand - the clean one - over his face.

He’s probably going a little insane from all of this isolation.

“You can’t be dead,” he repeats. “You can’t.”

Keith isn’t so sure how long he stays there, kneeled in the middle of the sand, sand sticking to his face as it blows into the tears running down his cheeks, but it’s long enough that the sky begins to lighten, the stars starting to fade. He looks out to the horizon, watching the sky turn impossibly pale pinks, a golden dawn beginning to rise.

There’s dried blood on his hand, his neck. He wants nothing more than for someone to help him, to wipe away his tears and his blood and tell him _everything is going to be okay,_ but Dad isn’t here, and Mom never was, and Shiro--

_Shiro._

He’s all alone. All alone, suffocating in silence, and there’s no one who’s going to come help him. He’s on his own, just as he’s always been, only this is in an infinitely more literal sense.

He’ll come out of this. He has to.

Tomorrow, he’ll clean up the mess that has plagued the shack since he got there, wipe away the blood. He’ll drive a half hour to take the hoverbike into town, find a job so that he can actually afford food to keep in the house instead of lying in bed, not able to eat even if he would want to. He’ll _force_ himself to get himself together, to keep the remaining pieces of himself from shattering any more than they already have.

It’ll be fine. _He_ will be fine.

But for now, Keith stays kneeling, watching the sunrise. The sky turns a brilliant blue, soft purple clouds going a blinding white, and it’s only then that he looks away. His body feels heavy, moving seems impossible, but somehow, he manages to pull himself to his feet.

 _Okay,_ he thinks to himself. _Okay._

And the sun keeps rising.

**Author's Note:**

> me, breaking my own heart several times: this is fine
> 
> leave a comment if you enjoyed and lmk your thoughts!!
> 
> [tumblr](https://aerixlee.tumblr.com/)


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